


Beneath the Starlit Sky

by Cas_tellations



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Astronomy, Constellations, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Jealous Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Outer Space, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 08:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22967170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cas_tellations/pseuds/Cas_tellations
Summary: The war comes to a close, and Shiro spends a night showing Galran soldier Keith Kogane all the constellations on Earth.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57
Collections: Sheithlentines 2020





	Beneath the Starlit Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lionescence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionescence/gifts).



> Happy (belated) Sheithlentines to Ali! I hope you enjoy this <3

The stars are bright and familiar, and Shiro hasn't felt like he's had a home for a long time now, but suddenly everything falls into place like some sort of inevitable, cosmic puzzle. Despite the last dregs of war still raging on and despite the board meetings and the stuffy hospital rooms and the smell of gasoline behind him, he smiles. 

He smiles at the stars and the soft push and pull of the waves reaching up the beach. He smiles at the mounds of cherry blossom petals, pale and pink. He breathes deep and feels a tightness unravelling in his chest. He wants to laugh at this joy; wants to let it take over his entire being. Let him go mad with it, let it consume him. He basks in the moonlight, sitting on a sun-bleached driftwood log far back from the receding tide. 

Spring is here, and the war is ending. 

The Blades of Momora are working with rebel resistance fighters somewhere up there between all the constellations that Shiro hadn't been sure he'd ever see again. They're cleaning up what Zarkon's tyrannical regime had left as collateral damage - broken, poverty-filled civilizations and missing generations. They're providing relief and Shiro knows that before long, he'd be up there too, with the rest of the paladins - Voltron flying one of its last missions and Atlas flying one of its first. 

"Shiro? You down there?" 

Shiro tilts his head up and grins up to the sky, "yeah, Keith." His voice is a touch too warm, a touch too intimate but Shiro can't bring himself to care. 

Keith Kogane was one of the first Galran soldiers from the Blade that Shiro had met, and they'd hit it off instantly. Something about Keith seemed to match Shiro perfectly. Keith had been the one to save Shiro again and again and again when Shiro's team of paladins couldn't reach him. And yeah, sure -- maybe they haven't known each other for that long. But sometimes beautiful things can be born out of something as gruesome as war and God, Keith's smile is the most beautiful thing Shiro has ever seen, but without the war, Shiro would have never had been graced with light comparable to the brightness of Keith's eyes when he's happy. 

Keith sits down next to Shiro, and he's close enough that Shiro can feel the warmth radiating off of Keith. "It's really beautiful on your planet," Keith says, and he tips his head back as Shiro does, looking up at the stars, "I'm glad that you invited me to stay."

"I'm glad you took me up on my offer." 

"Yeah, well, after all that fighting I figured we deserved a bit of a break." 

"No kidding." 

Silence lapses over them and the stars stare down at them with bright, wondering eyes. Shiro maps out the constellations, connecting the stars together in his mind, Betelgeuse to Meissa to Bellatrix and onward just as his grandfather had taught him how. That had been so long ago now, it feels like entire lifetimes had passed, too many years stretched between him and his childhood. Time passes differently in space. Sometimes time doesn't pass at all, bending as light does around supermassive black holes and stars far larger than the sun. His grandfather is long gone. It's okay, though, he thinks as he looks to the night sky. That's where his grandfather lives on - forever smiling down on him between the stars. 

The ocean is not still, so the sky's reflection is fractured and distorted, the bright sliver of the moon keeps getting caught on the waves, dancing between the peaks and the troughs. Fragments of stars get thrown around by the waves, too, dim light sparkling. 

Keith breaks the silence with, "remember Kepler 22-b?" 

"Of course." Shiro chuckles, remembering the look of awe that had taken over Keith's features on that planet. Between missions, on a brief pocket of peace, they'd landed on the water planet, the black lion parked on the edge of a cliff onlooking such a large expanse of water it still sends chills down Shiro's back just thinking about it. 

* * *

The water is still. No waves lap the shore, silence overtaking a planet twice the size of Earth. Romelle flanks Keith as he walks towards Shiro, those perfect lips tilted up in a smile. 

"Paladin." Keith greets him, and then, warmer, "Shiro, nice to see you." 

"Keith," Shiro says and clasps his hand, pulls him into a brief hug. "Where did your ship crash? I followed the signal as far as I could but it cut out." 

"We didn't crash." Keith says with a lopsided grin, "it was more like a, uh-" he rubs the back of his neck, "-unplanned landing. That may have perhaps knocked out an engine. Or two." 

Romelle snorts, "thanks for stopping by, Shiro. We totally crashed." 

"Sure, fine," Keith says, defeated, "it's a bit farther inland." 

Darkness overtakes them by the time they're able to patch together Keith's ship. It's not horribly broken, just some general malfunctions that weren't Keith's fault in the slightest. Manufacturing error. Still, Shiro has stripped from his paladin armour and rolled up his sleeves by sunset and by nightfall he's pretty much completely covered in oil and dust. Keith isn't faring much better. Romelle is in the best shape, having giving up helping them a long time ago in favour of walking along the quiet ocean and collecting alien shells. 

"That should do it," Shiro says, stepping back and wiping his hands off on the front of his shirt. "I'll fly Black back with you to base though, just to be sure. If that's okay." 

"Sure." Keith smiles again, and all Shiro wants to do at that moment is make Keith smile like that for the rest of his life. "You could stay at the base if you want to. To grab a bite to eat - with me." Keith's ears are tinged red, "if you want to." 

"Of course." Shiro says quickly, "I'd love to." 

Then they walk back towards the cliff to find Romelle, they're greeted by a sight and neither of them will ever be able to forget - with the absence of a moon to catch the solar light, the stars have fallen down into the planet's unmoving ocean. 

"Oh my God," Shiro says, pausing on the edge of the cliff - on the edge of the entire goddamn universe as he looks down upon every constellation that the night has to offer. It melts seamlessly into the backdrop of a night sky, making it impossible to tell where the planet ends and the galaxies beyond begin. 

There is nothing like it. 

They're both stuck there for a moment, completely starstruck. Immobile. 

Shiro follows Keith down to the water's edge. Romelle is there, idly sitting on a slight bank, a sketchbook in hand and a look of concentration upon her features. 

"Fuck," Keith says, "this is insane." He bends down, quickly taking off his boots and rolling up his pants. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" 

"No," Shiro says, wading into the water beside Keith, "they don't have anything like this where I'm from." 

Keith's ship is fixed, and they should be heading back now. Shiro should be climbing into Black and leaping for the skies. They should be flying between the stars towards Keith's Galran base. They should be docking and eating and laughing over warm plates of food. 

They shouldn't still be here. Shiro can't bring himself to leave, and Romelle doesn't ask to go, so they stay, and Keith tells him stories about all of the surrounding constellations. 

It's a perfect night. Seeing Keith's face light up in all kinds of joy and wonder is something Shiro wouldn't trade for anything. 

They go and sit with Romelle eventually, watching the space around them with awe. Romelle has since put her sketchbook away and stares out to space in the same way that Keith and Shiro do - with deep wonder. She moves into Keith’s space, leans up against him and rests her head on his shoulder. He chuckles, and Shiro’s gut twinges. 

He wants to be closer to Keith as Romelle is, wants to sit next to Keith without Romelle in between them. It’s jealousy, he realises, a moment later. Jealous of Romelle for being able to touch Keith so casually, so easily, like not every bit of physical contact is important. Like she trusts Keith, and Keith trusts her, so they lean into each other and bask in the physical comfort. 

Shiro looks to the stars, and he feels a bit lonely, when he can’t even pick out a single constellation.

* * *

"Kepler is up there, between Cygnus." Shiro says, "the Northern Cross." He touches the sand between him and Keith, etches the ten-stared constellation into the sand. "Do you see it?" 

Keith looks up to the heavens, "yeah." 

"We're pretty far away from that, now." Shiro chuckles. "Five hundred and ninety ish lightyears? Something around there." 

"Thank God for wormholes, hey?" Keith says, though he almost looks sad when he says, "that's where I grew up. On a Galran military base not too far from there. We're a long way from my home." 

"Would you go back?" Shiro says, leaving the if you could, as a silent addition. It hangs in the air between them, anyway. Sucking up the atmosphere, forcing Keith's eyes away from the wonder and beauty of the skies and towards the moon-touched sand. Keith's home hadn't survived the attacks from Zarkon's army. 

"Maybe." Keith says, "I know that as far as homes go, a military base is pretty shitty. But still, it was something. I knew those skies." 

Shiro wants to say a lot of things. He wants to tell Keith that he's sorry; he wants to tell him that he wishes that he had worked harder to vanquish Zarkon before they reached that final frontier. Shiro wishes that Voltron hadn't been on the other side of the goddamn galaxy with the castle nowhere in sight when the attack happened. He wishes that he could have been there to save Keith's home. He wishes that he could have done more, gone further, fought harder -- done something, anything, to be able to preserve Keith's childhood. He wants to tell Keith how much it hurts him to see Keith like this - dejected. 

Any words were sure to fall short, though. 

Instead, Shiro keeps his silence and pushes their shoulders together. Presses the lines of their war-weary bodies together, from knees to hip to shoulder. 

Keith lets out a soft sigh and sinks into it. 

"Thank you," he says, a moment later, "for everything." 

"Of course. Anything I can do - just let me know… I got you, okay?" 

On a whim, Shiro wraps an arm around Keith, hooks his fingers around Keith's shoulder and feels the steady rise and fall of his breaths. 

"I know we won, and that's good, but it seems to have come at such a horrible cost," Keith speaks, finally. 

"Can't have all been bad." Shiro says, because he can't seem to keep his thoughts to himself beneath the stars as he is now, "I met you, after all." 

"Yeah," Keith murmurs, that soft smile growing back onto his features, though a shadow lingers behind his bright eyes. 

They met, despite everything, between all of those dying stars and black holes and war-torn planets. Shiro had met Keith, and had fallen into his orbit so rapidly it had almost given Shiro whiplash. They met, with a nod and a shake of a hand and a touch so right that it felt like all of a sudden the entire universe decided to align, fragments colliding and clicking together. 

"D'you ever feel like…" Shiro stumbles for the right words, can't seem to figure out how to translate this feeling in his mind into words intricate and enthralling. "Like… like - destiny actually exists?" 

Keith doesn't answer for a long moment. He looks to the stars and to the ocean, to all the lights so alive and so far away. "We all come from stardust." Keith gestures towards space, "that's all we are. Stardust with consciousnesses and bodies and like, yeah, sure - we're not necessarily made up of only star materials - but, y'know, we all come from them and then complexity was born with entropy and mutation. I think that all life is just those specks of stardust trying to reunite with one another. I guess that's my definition of destiny, anyway." He ends off with an awkward shrug, his face burning bright in the starlight. 

Shiro lets out a big breath of air. 

"Like we were born of the same star."

At the very core of physics, we belong together. Though we have been apart for so long, we have finally (finally, finally) been able to find our way home - right back to the beginning. A cosmic story; a celestial prophecy that remains impenetrable through everything else. 

"Physics is so poetic, isn't it?" 

"When you put it that way, it is." Shiro reels, heart flooding with the notion that Keith's words reflect those of a man standing on an alter and pledging his life to someone, rather than a starstruck Galran soldier who's adrenaline has yet to bleed out of him completely, who's still got one foot in the war, but who's at least beginning to settle down and begin anew. 

"That's what we were raised to believe, anyway," Keith says, running his fingertips through the sand, tracing around the stars that Shiro had haphazardly thrown there. "As Galra." He refuses to make eye contact with Shiro, ducking his head, the tips of his pointed ears turning dark. 

"It's beautiful," Shiro says. 

_You're beautiful._

What Keith says is true, Shiro is sure. In that instant, when Shiro looks upon Keith's delicate and strong features, he is as captivated as he is when his gaze catches on all the stars in the sky.

It's hard to tear his eyes away. 

He can't bring himself to look away. 

He's been fighting so long, he's been planting his feet and taking hit after hit after goddamn hit for so long. He has broad shoulders - but oh, how they are marred now. He's not even in the same physical body he was a year ago. His mind is full of combat moves and rivers of blood, the sound of metal tearing through metal and of monsters living in the depths of space. He fought for years and years - through a gladiator arena and against the most powerful ruler he had ever bared witness to. 

Now… now, he just wants to rest. 

So he looks to Keith, and catalogues each of his divine features, wants to be able to recall it later and remember it for the rest of his years. 

What Keith said has to be true; for he shines brighter than anything Shiro has _ever_ seen. 

Shiro presses their sides more closely together. He wants to be closer. As close as Keith will let him be, and then closer still, wants to wrap himself up in Keith and be consumed by his comfort and warmth. 

"Is this okay?" He asks, fingertips yearning to touch. 

"Yeah," Keith hums in response. It's a soft, comforting sound. 

The war is ending, and Shiro is happy. Finally, unconditionally and iridescently happy. He holds Keith closer and smiles up at the constellations that he was raised with as Keith's hands cling to him, holding Shiro as tightly as steadily as Shiro does himself. 

When they kiss, may it be minutes or hours later - the last of the stardust aligns, and Shiro feels euphoric enough to cry. He might have done just that. It would explain why Keith breaks away with a gentle, "Takashi," and guides Shiro closer, lets himself be held. 

They stare towards the sky. The stare towards their joint futures and to a war that's coming to a close. 

When a breeze brings a myriad of cherry blossom petals raining down on them, their laughter splits through the night, brilliant and brights as Keith runs his hands through Shiro's ever-growing hair to brush the petals to the sand. 

They stay like that for too long. When they finally stand and brush the sand from themselves, the tide has receded and the sky bears the first streaks of a fiery sunrise. It's a sunrise to mark their perfect new beginning, full of promise and love. 

Shiro had been fighting for a long time. For so long that remembering a time he hadn't had to fight was nearly impossible. 

He doesn't need to fight anymore, though. 

He looks at Keith's smile, a silhouette against the rising star. 

  
_He’s home._

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from The Workday Release's "A Starlit Sky"
> 
> Follow me on Twitter for horse, astronomy and writing content: @Castellation_


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